That Robot Moment!

Tonight, the insane cavalcade of conspiracy theories, hacker hallucinations, and grandiose sci-fi heists that is USA’s Mr. Robot returns for a season of – who even knows at this point. Its first season was a rollercoaster ride, one that offered endless awe-inspiring moments, ones tailor-made to draw in fans … if indeed you like that sort of thing. We at Screen Scholars do and shared the exact moment when we knew we loved the Robot.

Navani’s Robot Moment!

“Did You Forget Who I Am?”

So many amazing, whirlwind moments during the first season of Mr. Robot, but I will never forget the moment I heard Darlene utter those words after Elliot tried to kiss her. Everything changes for me after that. Elliot freaks out and runs home to watch the CD of himself. He hacks himself and viola, the big family reveal! Darlene is his sister – yikes that was awkward. It was the huge missing piece in the puzzle of the show. A-ha! So that’s who Christian Slater/Mr. Robot is, it’s his friggin dad? Holy moly, Elliott is bonkers, man! So, this whole thing has been in his head?! Holy crap! – this was some of the mental discourse that went through my mind during this super pivotal A-ha moment. It’s when everything clicked for me and I was even more committed to the show after this plot twist.

Jason’s Robot Moment!

“That Was About The Time The Withdrawal Started … Remeber?”

The die was cast – if you could get through to the end of Eliot’s fever dream with all its inspired madness, and its somewhat charming flights of fancy, and came out the other end still pining for what lurked around the next corner of Mr. Robot‘s corruption, conspiracies, and hallucinations – you were hooked. En route to the heist, Eliot’s lack of sleep combined with escalating drug cocktails and his general schizophrenic nature leads to a detour to detox in a rundown motel room. It’s hard to tell when the dream sequence begins, but it’s somewhere around when his annoyed fellow hackers are dissecting the movie Hackers (while cutely throwing in a meta nod: “I bet you right now some writer is working hard on a TV show that will mess up this generation’s idea of hacker culture”). For thirty minutes, we are trapped Tron-style inside Eliot’s screwy mind, unable to wake up. It’s a litmus test to how far you’ll go with the show. Some jumped off the bandwagon. FWIW, I fell further in love with its dementia.